Many people refer to the Middle Ages as "The Dark Ages," which is usually misunderstood; historians use this term to refer to a period without a lot of written evidence, hence it is "dark" as we do not know much about it. Ancient Greece for instance had its own Dark Ages because for some reason the Greeks forgot how to write shit down for about three centuries. I'll admit there are parts of the Middle Ages that sucked and probably do deserve the term dark -- particularly the fifth and ninth centuries as the barbarians, Muslims, and Vikings were laying waste to Europe -- but contrary to popular belief, there was learning, philosophy, discussion, and contemplation. You probably haven't heard of many of these scholars: Alcuin of York, Anselm of Canterbury, John of Salisbury, Eckhart, Isidore of Seville, Lanfranc, Peter Lombard, Duns Scotus, Alexander of Hales, Roscelin...

But you may have heard of Abelard mostly because the details of his life are lurid enough to be mentioned in movies and TV shows to this day. We know about all this from his Historia Calamitatum or The Story of My Misfortunes, which is more or less an autobiography: Basically he was a famous but arrogant scholar, who tutored a woman named Heloise until he knocked her up. They secretly married but her uncle and some dudes barged into Abelard's room and castrated him out of revenge anyway. The couple spent the rest of their days as monastics, she an abbess and he ... well, he joined a monastery until they kicked him out for proving their patron saint was a fraud and then moved onto another one in Brittany until the monks beat him up and threatened to kill him, whereupon he fled and was later excommunicated for writing heretical works... Guy just couldn't live a peaceful life.

Anyway, the Historia Calamitatum isn't strictly an autobiography because it's actually a reply. Supposedly a friend had sent him a letter full of woes, and Abelard sent back a fucking tome that basically said, "You think YOU have it bad? Well, listen to what I went through." I mean, I can commiserate with Abelard, even though of half of his troubles is because he couldn't keep his goddamned pants on, but what a dick. (Ironic because he didn't have one.) Your friend is trying to tell you about his problems and instead of sending back advice or sympathy, you completely steamroll it with your fucking life story. You just basically told him to shut the fuck up. You're a terrible friend. No wonder you had so many enemies.

I have a tab open to a Xanga weblog entry with a mostly-finished post, and it's glaring at me in betrayal.